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Lost In Place: Growing up absurd in suburbia

Mark Salzman is the oldest child in a household of three children Ridgefield, Connecticut, the son of a piano teacher and social worker. Mark is first inspired to become a Zen master after seeing his first kung fu movie . He burns incense, wears his bath robe and bald–head wig, learns kung fu, and converts his basement into what he thinks is a Buddhist temple. His kung fu teacher, Sensei O'Keefe is a tough man who has deep set eyes with heavy shadowes under them with aviator style glasses, a handle bar mustache with a Fu Manchu beard growing down from his lower lip, and teeth that had clearly been rearranged several timed during his course to mastery. Sensei O’Keefe teaches Mark how to overcome his enemies. Mark also decides to become an astronaut(but never becomes one), befriends a boy who is about his age named Michael, gets a few jobs, becomes a cellist, quits kung fu, studies Chinese calligraphy, learns the Chinese language, learns to drive, gets a scholarship at a college, visits China, learns more kung fu, writes a book about his experience and gets married. He lives a good life, but of course, it is not flawless.

Forrest’s rating: 5 out of 5
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Page last modified 6/7/2005. Copyright 2005 Forrest Evans. All rights reserved.